Harvard Library's Slavic Blog

Russian ephemera collection (late 1980s-1990s) is a collection of materials and artifacts related to various political events, movements, parties and personalities that were part of the political life in the former Soviet Union and Russia between 1987 and 1999. This was a vibrant and very important period in the history of the country and the collection of ephemera documents the process of the decline and ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union as it was reflected in unprecedented free, independent and  non-traditional publishing output in Russia. Among the objects in our collection are fliers reproducing official documents or produced by political parties or movements, special issues of periodicals, campaign brochures, event invitations, meeting agendas, posters, photographs, campaign miscellanea (calendars, stickers, envelopes, notebooks with party symbols) and non-paper items (buttons etc.).

Geographically, most of the materials originate from Moscow, but some come from Leningrad/St. Petersburg and other areas of Russia, as well as from the republics and countries of the Former Soviet Union.

The collection was virtually “hidden”, since it has never been adequately processed or described. With special funding and effort the Slavic division provided access to this collection (as well as preserve it) by cataloging and digitizing it. In June 2015 the complete digitized version of the collection (12682 images) became available to users.

The collection has seven parts, each with its own title and its own record in Harvard’s online catalog:

1. Russian political ephemera, 1987-1999.
2. Soviet coup d’état attempt ephemera, 1991.
3. Russian parliamentary election ephemera ; Moscow legislative election ephemera ; Constitutional referendum ephemera, 1993.
4. Russian parliamentary election ephemera, 1995.
5. Russian parliamentary election ephemera ; Moscow mayoral election ephemera, 1999.
6. Soviet republics and countries of the Former Soviet Union ephemera, 1980s-1990s.
7. Russian cultural, religious and business ephemera, 1987-1999.

For a complete online guide to the collection in the LibGuide format please follow this link: http://guides.library.harvard.edu/russianephemera.